In 2016, Marie Lee had moved to Nashville, Tennessee, for a Teach for America gig. But by 2019, she was burnt out and realized that teaching wasn’t the right career move for her.
After a stint in e-commerce that was shut down by the pandemic, Lee decided to get her real estate license.
As a young person who had recently moved to a new city, rounding up clients with little experience under her belt was not easy. But Lee took to social media to show that she was putting the work in — even if the clients she was assisting or open houses she was working were for other agents.
Not long thereafter, Lee was gaining clients of her own and soon had a robust Instagram following and a healthy annual transaction volume to boot.
Here’s how Lee faked it ’til she made it on social media, and how she continues to use social media to drive her business today.
Jumping in the deep end
View this post on Instagram
By the time Lee was fully licensed, it was the fall of 2020, and the people she knew in the Nashville area were largely her own age and not at a point in their lives where they were ready to buy a home.
Lee knew that she had to grow her sphere somehow, and quickly realized that the groups of people relocating to Nashville because of the pandemic presented an opportunity for her as someone who had made the move herself just a few years earlier.
“[I] thought, ‘Oh, if I could try to attract people who are relocating here, these are people who have money and funds to compete with the current market. I’m just going to put myself out there to see if that’s the type of clientele that I can attract,'” Lee told Inman.
Lee secured her first deal about one month later and was lucky enough to get another one about three months after that. She realized she was developing a niche, and was determined to create social media content to curate her brand while door knocking, cold calling and conducting other lead gen activities.
Lee decided to quit a few side gigs she had held onto out of fear of not making enough money to get by and threw herself into being active in real estate in whatever way she could, even sometimes driving significant distances to host other agents’ open houses or hosting webinars where she was the only attendee. Afterwards, she would be sure to post about all of those activities on social media to make it look like she was busy with clients.
But people at her brokerage saw Lee’s social media posts as a waste of time and tried to steer her toward “income-producing activities,” Lee said.
“I actually had quite a few people that were telling me that I needed to stop doing what I was doing, that it wasn’t very professional and that I wasn’t going to be gaining clients from them.”
Fortunately, a broker from her current firm — Real — reached out to her and reaffirmed thoughts Lee had already been having about social media paying off in the long run.
After seeing one of Lee’s posts on social media about her far-flung open houses, they reached out and said, “Hey, I don’t think you need to be driving an hour-and-a-half away to go do showings. Let’s start working on building your business here in the Nashville area.”
The broker also saw the potential of social media as a lead generation tool and encouraged Lee to keep it up. “I went to a place where I felt like [social media] was embraced, and it ended up doubling my production that year,” Lee said.
With the green light from her new broker, Lee doubled down on her social media content, posting four to five days per week, and got lucky with a few posts that went “somewhat viral,” she said. Her followers shot up from about 2,000 to 11,000 in 2021, and after that, she was closing around one to three deals per month from social media leads.
By 2023, her total sales volume hit $14 million. Not bad for three years or so in the business. Today, Lee has more than 33,000 followers on Instagram.
How Lee’s content has evolved
View this post on Instagram
Over the past few years, Lee said her content has evolved with her career. She largely started out by posting educational content for newer homebuyers, and today, she likes to weigh in a bit more on current market insights or tidbits about Nashville that potential homebuyers might not know about, like a neighborhood’s walkability or where to find the best new construction.
She has also noticed that her followers respond more when she is being honest and open about the challenges of being an agent.
“I think the posts that tend to do well are where I’m being vulnerable with things that I have seen or experienced, or just what’s going on with my business,” Lee said. “I think most of the time, the people who are liking that content tend to be other agents who are relating to what it is that I’m having to say. That is not necessarily a bad strategy for me to create content that attracts other agents because I do work a lot of agent-to-agent referrals, both inbound and outbound.”
It’s also sometimes the case that her lower-performing content actually produces higher returns because it’s more targeted and focused.
“Maybe I am trying to compile a list of homes under a certain price point in a certain area … and I would show a screen recording of the homes that were for sale behind me, like a green screen,” Lee explained. “And I would tell people, ‘Hey if you want this list, comment $500 and I’ll reach out below.’ So then they’re letting me know, ‘Hey, I’m interested.’ Then I follow up with them.”
“It doesn’t get as many likes or shares, but that’s the kind of content that I would say is bringing me business and clientele.”
Marie Lee takeaways
- Before posting, ask yourself, “Would a third grader be able to understand this?”
- Use lots of line breaks so that content is easily skimmable. Stick to written text that is two lines or shorter at a time.
- Identify your ideal client and create content targeted toward them.
- Define what you want out of social media and tailor your content based on your goals.
- Draw content ideas from what you see happening in the market and with specific clients as case studies.
- Be patient — it can take a long time for social media posts to translate into business results.
- Determine a realistic posting schedule for yourself and stick to it.
- Don’t get caught up in needing fancy equipment — all you really need to get started is a smartphone.
